


Giving Good Gifts

by Marzos



Category: All For One (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, PORTIANA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 20:10:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6298540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marzos/pseuds/Marzos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Portia, unsurprisingly, loves her birthday. </p><p>After meeting all of the other pledges, she realizes that Ariana has the same birthday as her. </p><p>Ariana is not that big on celebrating her birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giving Good Gifts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bloodandcocoa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodandcocoa/gifts).



Portia had a big calendar on the wall of her room, above her bed, and as soon as she joined MST she took an erasable marker and marked every birthday with a big X.

It didn’t seem particularly nice to her. These were her sisters; she would be living with some of them for up to four years; every pledge filled out a little questionnaire about themselves so everyone could get to know each other, including their birthdays. Portia liked organizing parties, and she liked all her new sorority sisters (well, she assumed she would once she knew them). Why wouldn’t she want to make sure each one had an awesome birthday?

So she took out a little notepad, and she wrote down the birthdays when everyone read their answers aloud, and she put them on that calendar.

Portia had started at the end of the year and worked her way back. When she hit October--her birthday--she marked her name in big letters, grinning all the while.

Then she looked back down at her notepad and realized, wait; she needed to make room for one more person. Someone named ‘Ariana Henries.’

Portia mouthed it to herself. Then it hit her; she definitely remembered that name. She remembered her sitting slightly away the others while they were doing icebreakers in the common room for the pledges. She was sitting back with her arms crossed, looking kind of disinterested, interrupting whenever she had something sarcastic to say.

She must have been kind of shy.

Maybe a birthday party would help Ariana break the ice!

Portia capped her marker, putting it on her dresser as she hopped off of her bed. The hood of her onesie flipped off, revealing the loose bun she put her hair in. Portia walked out; she had a party to plan, and she thought best with a nice mug of tea with honey.

And, as soon as she opened the door, she ran into someone else and almost made both of them fall down the stairs.

 _“Whoa!_ I’m sorry! Are you alright?”

“Uh--yeah--” She pushed Portia off of her. “I mean, I’ll live. And it doesn’t seem like we’ll need to cut anything off.”

Portia laughed. “Well, I was worried for a second--and _heeey_ you’re Ariana aren’t you? Hi! I’m Portia. Portia Vallon?”

She clapped her hands together, and Ariana looked like she just landed on the surface of Mars.

“I don’t know if you remembered this, but you and I have the same birthdays! Oh, it’s okay if you don’t, I didn’t either until I was marking all of the birthdays on my calendar--you want to go down to the kitchen with me? I know it’s kind of late but we should talk!”

“Well--I was going down to the kitchen anyway--sure…?”

“Great!”

Portia continued humming to herself, not waiting to see if Ariana followed. But she did, and as Ariana rummaged through the pantry, Portia reached into the cabinet for tea bags.

“So, you marked everyone’s birthdays, why…?”

Portia looked at Ariana, confused as to why she would even ask the question. “Because I like birthday parties? Doesn’t _everyone_ like birthday parties?”

Ariana shrugged as she pulled a box of cheerios out of the pantry. “I dunno, I’ve never been huge on birthday parties.”

Portia fought the urge to gasp as she grabbed a tea kettle. “Are you--seriously? But, like...how can you not like birthdays? That’s, like, the one common denominator of our species. We all have birthday parties.”

Ariana grabbed the milk, a bowl, and started pouring. “Sure. And if I was as into attention as you are, I’d think the same thing.”

“Since when do I want attention?” Portia asked, turning on the stove and crossing her arms, pouting slightly.

“I mean, walking around in that onesie is definitely attention grabbing,” Ariana said.

“It’s comfortable!”

“I’m not saying it’s a _bad_ thing,” Ariana answered, smirking a little, “the onesie is cute.”

Portia fought down a blush. “Um...well, thank you. But that doesn’t explain why you are the only human being on the planet that doesn’t like their _birthday.”_

“I feel like, y’know,” Ariana took a spoonful of cereal, “everyone always tried to throw me this _big party,_ but I didn’t really care that much. It was like they were trying to force enthusiasm on me. And then I was acting like I enjoyed it and it felt more like this chore than like I was celebrating anything. You feel me?”

Portia frowned. When the tea kettle started to whistle, she poured the tea into a mug, and sat across from Ariana.

“I mean...sure,” Portia said, “but what if I actually ask you what you want?”

Ariana raised an eyebrow at her. “You really want to know?”

“Kinda, yeah!”

“I’d like to relax on my birthday,” Ariana answered, “watch some netflix, try not to think too hard about being one year closer to my impending death, and--actually, I was considering hacking into a bank and buying some gifts for myself too. But I don’t really want to involve you since you don’t seem like the committing a felony type.”

Portia narrowed her eyes. “You don’t know me that well. That’s how people form lifelong friendships!”

Ariana laughed, leaning back in her chair. “I cannot tell if you are being for real right now.”

“I’m always for real,” Portia answered. A smile spread across her face as she sipped her tea. “And fine, if you don’t want to celebrate. _But,_ you still have to celebrate with _me.”_

“Oh, I do, huh?”

“Of course! Because real birthdays are about friends pretending to be enthusiastic for the person. So you need to pretend to love birthday parties for me. Deal?”

She rolled her eyes. “I will try my best to keep the eye rolling and snark to a minimum.”

“Deal?”

“Deal.”

Portia swallowed the rest of her tea in one quick gulp. “Perfect--night Ria!”

“What, you’re going?”

Portia got up. “I have a birthday party to plan.”

She snapped her hoodie back up over her head smartly, nodded curtly, and walked out of the room with purpose, leaving a bemused Ariana in her wake.

* * *

 

Portia liked planning parties.

She was really, _really_ good at planning parties.

Especially when it was her party.

And especially when she received a challenge. Operation Make-Ariana-Enjoy-Her-Birthday was _on._

She had two weeks. Two weeks to get everything ready. Of course, this wasn’t a surprise party for her; but it was a surprise party for everyone else. And Portia would only enjoy her birthday if everyone else did too.

Plus, if Ariana wasn’t going to celebrate, she’d have to celebrate twice as hard for both of them. That took a fair amount of preparation.

She gathered all the decorations and put them under her bed.  Whenever she passed Ariana she’d throw a smile her way and a cheery ‘almost our birthdays, birthday twin!’

Ariana would roll her eyes, but she took it in good humor, which Portia appreciated.

On the eventful day (or really night), Portia hopped out of bed when she was sure everyone was asleep, bouncing on the balls of her feet. This was her favorite part. She couldn’t wait to see the looks on everyone’s faces…

* * *

 

“I cannot believe you threw all of _us_ a surprise party for _your_ birthday,” Alex said.

Portia laughed.

“I like parties,” she explained, “and I put a lot of thought into them!”

“I can tell by your schedule.”

Alex looked pointedly at the fridge, where Portia had staked a particularly large piece of paper with the day planned by the hour. Portia only grinned at it.

“The key to a good party is good organization!” She said cheerfully, “speaking of which, I need to get ready.”

“For what…?”

“I have my own schedule,” Portia answered, smirking at Alex before scanning the crowd of people. When she spotted her target, she pat Alex on the shoulder, told her to have fun, and walked through a mass that parted for her like the red sea.

“You know, that beanie looks really good on you,” Portia said, grinning.

Ariana stopped mid sentence, turning from the woman she was talking to. “Portia, hey. Nice party.”

“Thanks, Ria! Can we talk? I mean, if you want to finish talking to your friend that’s fine, but…”

“Can we pick this up later?” Ariana asked. Her friend shrugged and walked away.

Portia noticed she was really, really pretty. Which she normally wouldn’t really pay attention to--but the way Ariana’s eyes lingered on her as she walked away was...well.

“Who is she?” She asked.

“I don’t know. I just started talking to her. Y’know, chatting her up.”

She looked back at Portia and wiggled her eyebrows with a smirk. Portia was torn between wrinkling her nose and laughing because it was actually kind of cute.

“Well, I just wanted to ask you if you liked the party.”

Ariana shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know...I’m not a huge fan of cake,” she finished with teasing smile.

“Be _serious.”_

“Okay, okay, I’ll admit this was kind of cool. I can’t believe you got up and put up all these streamers and balloons yourself.”

“It was fun!”

“Yeah...happy birthday, Portia.”

“Well?”

“What?”

Portia grabbed Ariana’s hand. “What about _your_ birthday?”

“Um...I know it’s my birthday…? Speaking of which, thanks for not making a big deal out of it--”

“That’s because I planned something for _you_ , Ria. Come on.”

Ariana seemed to register that Portia was holding her hand, looking down and suddenly turning a little less coherent. “Uh--sure, sure. Let’s do that. Alright. Lead the way.”

“Awesome. We’re going to my room.”

Ariana’s eyes shot wide open as Portia tugged her away. “Wait, wait, _what?”_

“Don’t give me that look. Do you want to have a nice birthday or not?”

“I mean--I definitely--wow--”

Portia stopped in front of her door, letting go of Ariana’s hand and gripping the doorknob.

“Alright, Ria, happy birthday!”

She threw open the door.

“... _Wow,_ I need to get my mind out of the gutter,” Ariana mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing. So this is...I see stuffed animals.”

“Those are mine,” Portia looked at her hopefully, “do you like what I did? I thought--you know, I think you’d like this. From what you told me.”

She’d moved the stuffed animals into a big fluffy pile at the foot of the bed, setting up her laptop. There was a plate of cookies on the dresser and a slice of cake.

“So...for my birthday you set it up so I could hide, watch Netflix, and eat cake all day?”

Portia bit her lip. “I mean, kind of, I thought you might like that? Were you not being entirely serious? I thought--”

Ariana grabbed Portia and pulled her in for a hug.

“Dude, you are actually kind of awesome. I’m waiting for you to turn out to be, like, a mirage or something. Are you sure you’re not a demon in disguise trying to lure me in so you can steal my soul?”

“Um...I don’t think so?”

“Exactly what a demon would say,” Ariana answered.

_“Ria.”_

“Okay, okay. Seriously though, Portia, this was the nicest thing anyone has ever done to me. Thanks.”

Portia wasn’t sure how far she should read into the fact that someone baking her cake and setting up a laptop for her was apparently the ‘nicest thing’ anyone had ever done for Ariana. She decided to let it go.

“So...I need to go back to the party,” Portia said, “but you need to promise you’ll have fun here, okay?”

  
“You sure you don’t want to hang out with me for a while? We can watch an episode of Orange is the New Black, maybe…”

Ariana trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck.

“That sounds fun, Ria, but I can’t bail on my own party.”

She touched Ariana’s shoulder gently. “Maybe some other time?”

“Sure. Tomorrow…?”

Portia sighed. _“I can’t._ I have a test in lit in the evening that I’m probably going to fail anyway. I need to spend all day studying.”

Ariana nodded. It looked like the gears in her head were turning.

“...What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Ariana answered, “enjoy your party. Happy birthday, Portia.”

She turned and closed the door to Portia’s room before Portia could probe further.

Well. The important thing was that she made Ariana happy.

* * *

 

“Portia, shouldn’t you be studying for your lit test?” Alex asked.

“Not today!” Portia exclaimed cheerfully, lying on the common room couch with a tub of ice cream. “No class, which means _no test!_ My professor cancelled it.”

“Don’t you have Professor Villefort? My sister had him. She said he never cancelled a class. Ever. She said once he showed up with a 104 fever and gave a lecture.”

“Lucky I guess!”

Alex frowned, bit finally shrugged and walked away. Almost as soon as Alex left the room, Ariana poked her head in.

“Uh, hey, Portia?”

“Ria, hey! How are you?”

“Great. So…” She put her hands in the pockets of her skinny jeans. “Think you’ll do well on your test today…?”

“I don’t have to worry about it,” Portia answered.

“Seriously? That’s awesome! So we can hang out today then? You must have been happy when he cancelled.”

“Yeah, I--”

Portia paused. She sat up.

“Wait...how did you know that?”

“What?”

“That my professor sent an email to everyone cancelling the class.”

Ariana looked surprised for a moment before saying hastily, “Well, you know, I just figured that since you didn’t have a test--”

“And I didn’t even say I didn’t have a test. I just said I ‘didn’t need to worry about it.’ He could have changed the date. Or made it open book. Or I borrowed notes from someone and I don’t need to study. But you knew he sent an email cancelling class today. How did you know that?”

Ariana tried to play it off with a fake sounding laugh. “Seriously Sherlock, it was just a lucky guess. Do you want to hang out with me or not?”

She’d left Ariana alone with a computer.

She had mentioned jokingly that she hacked into banks for fun.

Maybe she should have taken the hacking thing a little more seriously…

“That depends. Do you have anything to do with an email cancelling a class, sent by a professor who had _never_ cancelled class before?”

Ariana shrugged, walking towards her. “I will neither confirm, nor deny any involvement,” she answered, “although _theoretically,”_ Ariana sat down next to Portia, “if I _happened_ to know a cute girl who gave me a nice, considerate gift for my birthday...and she _happened_ to mention having a lit test the next day she didn’t want to take...and I _happened_ to know how my way around a computer…”

She grinned sheepishly. “Well, if I could return the favor, why not?”

Portia scrutinized her. She was still wearing her pajamas. She bit her lip and looked pointedly down at Portia’s container of ice cream.

“...You are lucky you are adorable,” Portia finally said, “besides, being willing to commit crimes for each other is the foundation of any successful relationship, I guess.”

Ariana’s grin widened. “So does that mean I get ice cream, then…?”

Portia rolled her eyes good naturedly. “Go ahead.”

She dipped her spoon into the pint, giving Ariana a taste. They moved in closer on the couch and started talking as though nothing strange had happened at all.

It was the beginning of many, many mornings they would spend snuggling on the couch eating ice cream. But the email--henceforth known to her lit class as ‘the incident’ since Professor Villefort vehemently denied ever sending it--was the one secret that Portia was never able to get Ariana to admit to.

But it was still the best birthday present Portia ever had.


End file.
